Argumentative Essay: Random Drug Testing In Schools

Random drug testing in schools has been a controversial and heated topic for a long time. Random drug testing involves a school administration spontaneously picking a student or a group of students on any given day, and testing them for the presence of drugs in their system. Schools usually enforce this policy on any student who either participates in a sport or extracurricular activity through the school, or has a parking pass at the school. The test is commonly done by a urinalysis, where a sample of pee is sent off to a drug testing laboratory to be examined for harmful substances. Many schools have enacted random drug testing for students in the past decade, while there is a large number of schools that do not use the tests. Some believe

The side in favor of random testing argues that the effects of its implementation are only positive. The concern of drug abuse seems to outweigh the possible issue of privacy invasion. An article supporting the topic states, “The Supreme Court, in fact, carefully weighed the privacy issue, ultimately determining that a school’s interest in protecting children from the influence of drugs outweighs their expectation of privacy” (Walters). Those who support drug testing argue that illegal drug use in the United States is a major issue, and the amount of minors using drugs today demands a solution or program to help prevent use of various illegal drugs. An argument in favor of random student drug tests points out the massive amount of money attributed to dealing with drug abuse every year. “Substance abuse adds at least $41 billion dollars each year to the costs of elementary and secondary education in terms of special education, truancy, counseling, teacher turnover, property damage, injury, and other costs” (McKinney). With these random tests in place in schools, the costs associated with drug abuse could decrease as a